Masters of Beef, Yogurt Villain, Criminalizing Sale of Junk to Minors

Massaging the Numbers: The CDC announced that 1 in 6 Americans get food poisoning a year, as opposed to prior estimates of 1 in 4. It wasn’t because fewer people got sick, just that the “data” had gotten better. And that’s still a lot, by the way. via Civil Eats

Non-Shocker: Eating Fondue+Booze Slows Digestion: A study on how alcohol interacts with digestion determined that drinking with your meal can slow digestion by as much as 50 percent. But the funniest thing about it was that the scientists had people eat a bunch of fondue and then found "one of the most striking findings" to be "how incredibly slowly the stomach empties a cheese fondue meal, no matter what you drink." We could have told them that. via Discovery

No Evidence Yogurt Helps the Bowels: Dannon agreed to pay a $21 million settlement for making exaggerated health claims about its products' ability to boost immunity and keep people regular. via Food Safety News

California's Latest Food Lawsuit: A Sacramento, California, mother of two (joined by perennial rabble-rouser Center for Science in the Public Interest) has filed a lawsuit against McDonald's because, according to the Daily Mail, "the company’s Happy Meals marketing tempts vulnerable youngsters into the chains just for the toys, and in turn makes them obese and addicted to poor quality, high-fat junk food." Whether it is illegal to try to sell junk food to kids remains to be seen, because last time we checked, you didn't have to be 18 to purchase fries. via Daily Mail

Fantasies Are Fat-Free: Imagining food can, apparently, make you eat less. In a study cited in the New York Times, mulling over a Snickers bar in your head can substitute for eating a real one. Call us skeptics. via New York Times

It’s "Cat Fur," People, "Cat Fur": A video from Saveur's holiday party cleared up the issue of how to pronounce the magazine’s name. Editor-in-Chief James Oseland helpfully offers the rhyme “cat fur.” via Eater National